How Conservatives Shot Small Government in the Foot

Leviathan on the Right: How Big-Government Conservatism Brought Down the Republican Revolution

By Michael D. Tanner

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Cato Institute, $22.95

In "Leviathan on the Right," Michael D. Tanner tells how Republicans have helped increase the federal government's power. One is tempted to compare the Republicans to preachers who denounce sin in the pulpit and then practice it at the no-tell motel. But Tanner, director of health and welfare studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, shows that such an analogy would be off point. Instead of hiding their support for big government, he writes, many conservatives openly embrace it. It would be as if a pastor used the church bulletin to praise adultery.

Much of Tanner's material is familiar. If you care enough about politics and policy to read The Politico, then you know about the No Child Left Behind Act and the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Tanner is right to worry about "the skyrocketing cost of entitlement programs," but the trend has been obvious for years. And from a stylistic standpoint, it is time for a moratorium on the word "skyrocketing."

While the path is well-worn, Tanner offers useful analysis along the way. His discussion of government marriage initiatives is especially sharp. He makes a good case that it might be better to focus on pregnancy prevention rather than marriage itself. And even if marriage promotion is a good idea, he writes, "one should ask whether the federal government is any more likely to be successful at this effort than it has been at promoting other desirable behaviors."

Tanner smashes a myth about deficits. In years past, some conservatives said that tax cuts would force spending cuts, thus "starving the beast." Certain academic writers have taken this argument seriously, suggesting that deficits have been part of a grand GOP strategy to slash government. But when tax revenue gets scarce, as Tanner points out, the beast happily feeds on debt and spending keeps going up. "Starving the beast" was never a strategy, just a lame rationalization.

Tanner overstates his case when he says that big-government conservatism "represents something altogether new in the development of conservative thought." Robert A. Taft, a founder of modern conservatism who earned the name "Mr. Republican," backed federal aid to education and sponsored landmark public housing legislation.

Tanner uses President Reagan as a counterpoint to today's big-government conservatives. He quotes Reagan's first inaugural address that "government is the problem" but omits what Reagan said moments later: It "is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work -- work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."

In that speech, Reagan sounded like a big-government conservative, and he often acted like one. After getting Congress to cut taxes in 1981, he backed huge tax increases in 1982. Instead of scrapping Cabinet departments, he signed the bill creating the Department of Veterans Affairs. And he championed the 1988 Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act, the largest expansion of the program since 1965. (Catastrophic indeed: The bill cost so much that Congress repealed it in 1989.)

Even the head of Tanner's organization questioned the Reagan record. William A. Niskanen was a Reagan appointee to the Council of Economic Advisers and has chaired the Cato Institute since 1985. He told The New York Times in 1987: "We have a bigger government, with higher spending. We've slowed regulation down, but we haven't reversed it. In other words, there was no Reagan revolution."

If even the Gipper couldn't do it, maybe there's a good reason. Tanner underestimates the political difficulty of cutting government. People may tell pollsters that they favor "smaller government providing fewer services," but the picture shifts when we look at particular programs. Respondents, by 53 to 40 percent, recently agreed with the statement: "I would be willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone can have health insurance."

Libertarians can make a powerful argument that such sentiments are mistaken. But they must drive that argument home to people who don't log onto the Cato Web site. Until they devise the language and political tactics that can get ordinary Americans to change their minds, the era of big government will continue.

John J. Pitney Jr. is the Roy P. Crocker Professor of American Politics at Claremont (Calif.) McKenna College.